To achieve recruiting success, you need three groups of people, all working together for one common goal: to hire the best people for the job. Think of them as a talent acquisition triple play where hiring managers, candidates, and recruiters create a successful talent acquisition experience.

In today’s market, the war for talent has been flipped on its head. Thus, a positive recruiting outcome is any company’s to lose. But candidates are only part of the equation. Recruiters and hiring managers are every bit as essential to creating a great employment brand and a winning talent acquisition experience. Strong relationships among all three of these stakeholders are the foundation for successful talent acquisition initiatives that result in great hires.

Here’s a roundup of the three elements of successful recruiting and insights on how these connections can help your organization build an effective and practical talent acquisition “triple play”.

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1) Candidates: Recruiting the Best Talent at the Right Time

You don’t have to wait to hire people to start building positive relationships and superior engagement. Begin by connecting with potential candidates on their terms and turf. Social networks, online ads, and online videos provide easily consumable insight into your company’s personality and offerings.

In order to target and attract the right candidates, your communications and content must reflect an accurate employer brand. A true representation of your company culture and values across all touchpoints will result in candidates who are better aligned with your company from the start.

Considering the sheer volume of tasks already on a recruiter or hiring manager’s plate, the talent acquisition process can make regular communications difficult. Many organizations struggle to deliver a qualitative experience to candidates other than those who make it to the final stages of the hiring process.

What about the rest? Within the larger pool of candidates who may be unqualified for a specific role, there are some who have a potential fit for other openings or even future roles within your organization. Investing in programs that enable you to deliver relevant feedback and development resources to nurture these candidates elevates your talent acquisition experience, fuels a strong candidate pool, and arms you with invaluable “relationship leverage” in highly competitive markets.

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2) Internal Recruiters: Partnering with Hiring Managers to Increase Efficiency

Finding workers with critical skills is a top challenge for most companies. But your talent acquisition process is more than just collecting resumes and filling jobs.

In order to optimize the results of talent acquisition initiatives—and to keep the process and communications as streamlined and efficient as possible—your internal recruiters should be working in partnership and in sync with your hiring managers.

Technology-based tools, including real-time communications, collaboration platforms, and informal videos can facilitate the interaction between these two key stakeholders for workflow planning, skills requirements, creation of accurate job descriptions and, ultimately, to support efficient screening and scheduling among recruiters, candidates, and hiring managers.

Strengthening these partnerships gives recruiters a clearer picture of the hiring manager’s concept of an “ideal candidate” and is a critical step to elevating the quality of the process as well as the outcome.

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3) Hiring Managers: Collaborating for Successful Recruiting

Talent acquisition initiatives can be time-consuming for all stakeholders, and therefore, process efficiency is critical.

The importance of a strong connection between hiring managers and recruiters is underscored, since both the efficiency and the effectiveness of the talent acquisition process rely on seamless recruiter-hiring manager interaction and partnership, as well as clearly defined goals.

Tools that support real-time communications, informal videos that “train” hiring managers on effective interview techniques and screening best practices, and capabilities that enhance connections and collaboration between the hiring managers and the recruiters go a long way to streamlining the process and driving the best outcomes.

It’s challenging to raise the bar on the quality of your overall talent acquisition experience. But with a focus on this “triple play” of the relationships among your recruiters, hiring managers and candidates, you can improve the consistency and effectiveness of your employment brand and enhance the outcome of the acquisition experience for all three stakeholder groups.

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Editor’s note: This blog was originally published in July 2015 and has been updated with recent insights and information.